"Gentleman, you denounce the negro; you say that he is an inferior being. You forget that we white men claim to stand on the highest plane of civilization,—that we are of a race which for a thousand years has been in the front rank,—that the negro has been bruised, crushed, trodden down,—denied all knowledge, all right, everything; that we have compelled him to labor for us, and we have eaten the fruit of his labors. Can we expect him to be our equal in acquisition of knowledge? Where is your sense of fair play? Are you afraid that the negro will push you from your position? Are you afraid that if you allow him to aid in putting down the Rebellion, that he too will become a free man, and have aspirations like your own, and in time express toward you the same chivalric sentiments which you express toward him? How much do you love your country if you thus make conditions of loyalty?"
The captain made no reply. The whole company was silent. There were smiles from the ladies. The captain went out upon the deck, evidently regretting that the conversation had fallen upon so exciting a topic.
The First South Carolina Regiment of loyal blacks was in camp on Smith's plantation, four miles out from Beaufort. We rode over a sandy plain, through old cotton-fields, pine-barrens, and jungles, past a dozen negro-huts, where the long tresses of moss waved mournfully in the breeze. The men had gathered a boat-load of oysters, and were having a feast,—old and young, gray-headed men, and curly-haired children, were huddled round the pans, steaming and smoking over the pitch-knot fires.
Smith's plantation is historic ground,—the place where the Huguenots built a fort long before the Mayflower cast anchor in Cape Cod harbor. The plantation was well known to the colored people before the war as a place to be dreaded,—a place for hard work, unmerciful whippings, with very little to eat. The house and the negro quarters were in a delightful grove of live-oaks, whose evergreen leaves, wide-spreading branches, thick foliage, and gnarled trunks, gave cooling shade. In front of the house, leading down to the fort, is a magnolia walk. Behind the house, in a circular basin,—a depression often found on sandy plains,—was the garden, surrounded by a thick-set, fantastic palmetto hedge. The great oak between the house and the garden, was the whipping-post. One of the branches was smooth, as if a swing had been slung there, and the bark had been worn by the rope swaying to the merry chattering and light-hearted laughter of children. Not that, however. There the offender of plantation law,—of a master's caprice,—had paid the penalty of disobedience; there men, women, and children, suspended by the thumbs, stripped of their clothing, received the lash. Their moans, groans, cries, and prayers fell unheeding on overseer, master, and mistress,—but heard and heeded they were in heaven, and kept in remembrance. And the hour of retribution had come, the time of deliverance was near.
What a choice spot for the punishment of the criminal! close to the house,—where the master, the mistress, their sons and daughters, the infant at the nurse's breast, could see the blood fly.
The plantation jail was in the loft of the granary, beneath a pitch-pine roof, which, under the heat of a midsummer sun, was like an oven. There was one little window in the gable for the admission of air. There were iron rings and bolts in the beams and rafters, where the slaves were chained.
The owner of the plantation was not unmindful of the religious wants of his fellow-Christians. West of the house was the plantation chapel, a whitewashed building of rough boards, twenty feet by thirty, with a rude belfry, where hung the plantation bell, which on week-days was rung at daybreak. Charmingly its music floated over the blue waters of Beaufort Bay, mingling with the morning winds, swaying the magnolia branches, calling the hands—men, women, and children—to their unrequited tasks in the cotton-field. On Sunday it called them, with silvery lips and melting sounds, to come and worship: not to study God's Word, not to bow down with him who—by the "divine missionary institution," as the Southern doctors of divinity called it, was their master, ordained of God—could separate husband and wife, or toss in a baby to boot, in a bargain; not to bow down with him, for he worshipped in Beaufort, in the ancient church;—he was a chivalric son of South Carolina, riding up in his coach, and leaving his four hundred fellow-disciples to grope their way to heaven, directed by a pious bondman, as best they might.
If one wish for a flood of reflections, he will be overwhelmed on such a spot.
The First South Carolina was at drill beneath the oak, drilling as skirmishers, advancing, retiring, rallying, deploying, loading and firing, with precision. They had already been under fire in an expedition up one of the Georgia rivers.
I had breakfasted with the captain of the steamer Darlington, which was used as a transport on the occasion, who showed me the numerous bullet-marks on the steamer.